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Message 1.Â
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Part 2
This is a continuation of an earlier thread in the Village Hall. The Alcohol debating society is a place for more robust discussion than on the Alcohol concerns thread, and also a place where people like myself, who have no personal experience of alcoholism but are interested in questions concerning alcoholism, can feel free to post.
Part 1 of this thread is at:
The end of the previous thread became quite heated: if you wish to continue that discussion, please would you do so on the other thread. Otherwise everybody is welcome here.
F(A)B -
Message 2
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Friday, 28th March 2008
I'd like to continue a discussion on the other thread that got side-tracked. This is a quick resume of 'the story so far'. I'm going to quote a couple of things from the other thread on here. They're just a personal selection of what I found interesting, so if you think I've missed anything out, please feel free to add it on.
The discussion started because Fee said that she'd be interested in discussing the issue of alcoholism being 'passed on' through the family:
As well as the effects on them of having lived with an active alcoholic, I also have lots of concerns around the genetic issue - I know there is no firm evidence for a genetic link but I have come across so many cases of alcoholism occurring in several generations of the same family that I can't help worrying. I do recognise that it is statistically quite likely because of the prevalence of the problem and I also know that no-one has to become an alcoholic just because there is a genetic propensity to do so. This is perhaps an appropriate debating thread topic, divorced from any particular personal detail.Â
The discussion starts at:
There are some posts about the genetic basis of alcoholism, with some interesting comments from furiouslocki.
Then we got on to what could be done to help the children of alcoholics to avoid the problem themselves. E.Yore posted this very interesting question:
Apologies if this is a remarkably stupid question (no alcoholics among family/friends): Removing the social factors of povery and mental health factors of underlying psychiatric disorder, if children see the damage the alcohol has done to their parent & parental relationship (marriage break-down, violence towards children or just too sloshed to turn up at sports day etc.) doesn't it have the effect of making the children virulently teatotal?Â
And ¤ åloÿsiå ¤ posted this very moving reply:
And picking up on a point that E Yore made earlier, as the daughter of an alcoholic I too am amazed that the children of alcoholics continue the behaviour.
My mother was talented and beautiful - inside and out. At least she should have been.
She drank herself into oblivion and then killed herself. Why would I do the same? It doesn't make sense and I don't really think it's the same as abused children continuing the behaviour that they are subjected to. My mother didn't pour alcohol down my throat, she did however show me what a wasted life looked like.
I carry the emotional scars from years of worrying about her. I suffer chronic anxiety. But I don't drink.
Which brings us back to the genetic question. Are the children who go on to become alcoholics genetically predisposed? I drank a bit when I was younger - there was never any indication that I would develop an addiction. Was I lucky, or sensible or what?
(I'll tell you one thing, when my daughter was old enough to drink I was absolutely terrified that 'it' might have skipped a generation. So far, so good.)Â
In between, Laura made a long and interesting post at:
out of which I took the message that we should be helping children to develop coping mechanims other than drinking in order to deal with stress. (This point had also been made earlier.)
I'm most interested in this question of why some children are affected in the way that ¤ åloÿsiå ¤ was, while the statistics show that a sizeable proportion (but still the minority) of children of alcoholics follow their parent(s) into problem drinking.
Does anybody have any thoughts on this?
F(A)B -
Message 3
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Friday, 28th March 2008
My response on the other thread to E.Yore was as follows:
Not necessarily [to the suggestion that the children would take the same approach as Aloysia] - they may think (if they have a low level of understanding of the issue)that their parent lacked the willpower which they see themselves as having [I worry that I can see signs of this way of thinking in my son] - and may feel moved to prove that they can do what their parent has not done [and, of course, he may not have the genetic tendency and may anyway find other outlets apart from alcohol]. In other cases, the dislike, anger etc may be turned towards the drink itself - I doubt if that is a particularly healthy reaction either.Â
And picking up on my last point - I was thinking about someone I've met who had an alcoholic parent and has an addict son and who has been virulently anti-alcohol all her adult life but has all sorts of other issues - and controlling tendencies which make me feel positively laissez-faire in contrast.
Fee -
Message 4
Posted by LooseWheel (U2499574) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Hello - not sure if I should join this discussion, but I am the daughter of an alcoholic father who died due to complications caused by his alcoholism. My teens were absolutely blighted by his drinking as he was an aggressive, violent drunk (not a happy one) - so much so that I ran away from home at a young age, through fear of him, getting into all sorts of abusive relationships in consequence. Nevertheless, I enjoy a drink and have been known to have one too many - even now as I'm typing this I've got through a couple of bottles of wine with my OH. I'm not sure about the genetic link though, although I do associate drinking with pleasure, despite my childhood experiences with dad. I don't really think I have a 'problem' with drinking, I recognise that at times (over the weekend) I probably drink too much - it's not unknown for me and OH to get through 3 bottles of wine in one day, but neither of us drinks during the week, and I know that it's not every weekend, and I can happily go without. You'd think with my family background I'd be very anti alcohol, and it's true that when I'm sober but with people who've had too much to drink, I dislike it intensely - but I put that down to being on a different 'wavelength' because I'm not drinking on that particular occasion. It's a bit of a minefield this isn't it? I admit it took me years to accept that my OH could go out for a drink without me and come home merry (in the true sense of the word) without me panicking that he would come back like dad - fighting drunk and ready to hit anyone. It caused many an upset in the early years of our relationship, but after 20 odd years together, I know that he's nothing like my dad.
Sorry for the ramble, and sorry if this isn't appropriate. Blame the drink.
LW x -
Message 5
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Loosewheel
Very appropriate and very interesting - somewhat like some of the things Locki was posting earlier on the other thread. I admire you for being able to work through the difficulties of the early days with your OH and still be here to tell the tale.
Fee -
Message 6
Posted by LooseWheel (U2499574) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Thanks Fee - even now my feelings about my dad are rather ambivilent - when he wasn't on the booze he was intelligent, funny, and had loads of charisma, so I do know that alcohol had an entirely detrimental effect on him, and through examining his own background, I can even understand why. He died on my birthday. Sometimes I think it was deliberate.
LW x -
Message 7
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:55 GMT, in reply to LooseWheel in message 4
Don't apologise, Loosewheel. Good on you for being able to be so honest. -
Message 8
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Friday, 28th March 2008
LW, from everything I've read and experienced, it's not about how much you drink, it's about how (and dare I say, why) you drink.
As the child of a father who was a big drinker but not an alcoholic, and a mother who was utterly obsessed with his alleged alcoholism, screaming it from the rooftops ... But was in fact almost certainly an alcoholic herself, I will be following the genetic discussion with interest. -
Message 9
Posted by Celebrian (U7830306) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Hello people, just popping in to join the discussion and bookmark thread! As most of you know I'm an alcoholic but recovering, by the grace of God.
C -
Message 10
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Friday, 28th March 2008
I am sorry - that must have cast a permanent blight over your birthday.
I think a more experienced Al Anonic than I am might well be pointing to a passage I found a while ago to the effect that we are rarely right when we think people are behaving as a response to us (eg angry because of something we have done) - it rather bluntly but probably realistically suggested that it is our sense of ourselves as being the centre of the universe which makes us think that way. So it might feel as though it was deliberate but it's highly unlikely that it was anything of the sort.
Fee -
Message 11
Posted by LooseWheel (U2499574) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Me too Judith - it will be good to see other people's points of view on this one - naturally I'm curious. Thank you Carrick, Fee and Judith for your kind words - I probably wouldn't have posted at all if I hadn't had a drink - which must tell you something I guess.
LW x -
Message 12
Posted by LooseWheel (U2499574) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Oh I know that really Fee - it's just that he was such a cantankarous old bast*rd that it would be just like him!
The night he died I had a long conversation with mum, who'se life had been made absolute hell by him, and we talked all this through, so I'm really not suffering any permanent angst by it - I kind of meant it in a light hearted way. Tell you one thing though, he didn't go 'gently into this good night', he fought all the way, so much so that I had to hold him down - I think as a family, we had our 'revenge' if you can call it that, on that night. Sorry if this is a bit too graphic.
LW x -
Message 13
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Friday, 28th March 2008
LW, oddly, your image made me smile. A friend of mine, an utterly lovable, Eeyore-ish alcoholic, was very given to muttering into his cups "Don't go gently..? Pah! What do they mean, don't go gently..? I tell you, if my son ever says that to me, I'm going to tell him, I'll damn well Go Gently if I so wish...!"
Judith -
Message 14
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Friday, 28th March 2008
actually wanted slightly to ask, Laura, if you really think the important thing is the link in children's minds between mood-lifts and alcohol? (I too may well have missed something crucial in your post, so apologies if so) I certainly never associated alcohol with anything other than misery as a child; but I still went on to become an alcoholic.Â
Judith, hope you don't mind me bringing your question in here but I thought it was interesting and I was rather wanting to get away from that thread. Do you mean that when you were drinking it always made you feel miserable?
Actually it occurs to me that the Clarissa Dickson Wright story is very pertinent here - I'll see if I can find the link to her Desert Island Discs interview which is a good precis.
Fee -
Message 15
Posted by LooseWheel (U2499574) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Bless you Judith. I hope you never have occasion to see someone who doesn't 'go gently' - no disrespect intended at all - it just wasn't very nice that's all - wish my bluddy dad had gone easy - would have made it all a hell of a lot easier on the rest of us. Please believe this is in no way intended to criticise your post, just felt a need to answer.
LW x -
Message 16
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Friday, 28th March 2008
Loosewheel - yes, I'm trying not to imagine it - I imagine that you've unsuccessfully tried to forget it.
The Clarissa Dickson Wright link is - there's several pages - the bit about her starting drinking is on the second page. I listened to the tape of her autobiography on a car journey recently - worth listening to - it contains some extraordinary powerful descriptions of being the child of an alcoholic and then an alcoholic herself.
Fee -
Message 17
Posted by LooseWheel (U2499574) on Friday, 28th March 2008
She was pretty wonderful wasn't she? I remember listening to her story on the radio and thinking she'd had it far tougher than me.
LW x -
Message 18
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
I listened to it and wondered why on earth they stayed in such a situation - but I know that people do - and in her case she suggests that the medical fraternity closed ranks with her father and made it well nigh impossible for her mother to move out - I hope that it would be a bit different today.
Fee -
Message 19
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Fee, a beautifully concise phrase Clarissa DW used in her DID interview is etched on my mind: Asked if she thought her track towards alcoholism was genetic (inherited from her father) she said that when she first started to drink heavily after her mother's death, "her genes recognised it". (i.e the alcohol). I think that in itself contributes a lot to the nature/nurture debate.
But no, when I said I grew up associating alcohol with misery, I meant more that I drank regardless. (Coo, for a writer, I'm rubbish at making myself clear!) But I can say, oddly, that when I first started drinking alcoholically, in my late 30s, what the early stages triggered was not a genetic recognition like CD-W's, but my mother's voice in my head yelling "Alcoholic! Alcoholic!" - first at my father, and then at me (even when I was almost teetotal). To which I responded with a sort of fatalistic give-a-dog-a-bad-name attitude, and piled in. Now, whether this was an "excuse", I don't know. But I do know that the external voice telling me I was an alcoholic, born and bred, never shut up, all the time I was drinking alcoholically. And I often wonder what path I would have taken without it, left just to the genes. And social conditioning, of course.
I would be fascinated to know whether Nature or Nurture was at work here, and in other cases. -
Message 20
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Judith - you said you thought your mother was an alcoholic - was she really shouting at herself, do you think, rather than you?
Fee -
Message 21
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
I meant to say, as may be obvious but which will niggle unless I do, is that C D-W's phrase "the genes recognised it" strikes me as a superbly neat way of saying that there may be a genetic predisposition, but there is no reason why it should dominate.
Or, as Laura put it in the other thread, you're not doomed to alcoholism just because it's In The Family. -
Message 22
Posted by Wiser owl (U11202420) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
For fear of upsetting the sensitive ones I will not join you in this second debate so please debate away, however If I see 'Laura the flounced' return I shall join in for if its good enough for her then its good enough for me.
I shall enjoy reading it. Many thanks, -
Message 23
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:44 GMT, in reply to Fee in message 18
I listened to it and wondered why on earth they stayed in such a situation - but I know that people do - and in her case she suggests that the medical fraternity closed ranks with her father and made it well nigh impossible for her mother to move out - I hope that it would be a bit different today.Â
I know it might seem like a change of subject, but Domestic Violence is something that happen, undercover, in every strata of society, and involves the affected people wondering whether there was something that *they* could or should have done.
I have known partners of solicitors, police etc who have felt that the ranks have closed around their partners, and left them with no-one who believes them.
"But he's so *nice* !" -
Message 24
Posted by Celebrian (U7830306) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Is it possible to ban certain people from certain threads? If you just know they're going to prove unhelpful?
Why are you having a go at Laura before she's even said anything, VF? Is this really helpful or constructive? -
Message 25
Posted by Irish_Rose (U2274888) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
I will not join you in this second debate Thank God for that. So why are you here? Goodbye.
-
Message 26
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Good morning Celebrian and Irish Rose.
At the risk of causing more harm than good, might I ask you to continue your discussion of the points that you have raised on the other thread, if you wish to do so? Thanks.
Best Wishes to all,
F(A)B -
Message 27
Posted by Irish_Rose (U2274888) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Hi FAB
What? Why? Is this thread off limits? I don't think I raised any points, I was simply replying to another poster. Sorry if I've caused any offence, not intentional. -
Message 28
Posted by Celebrian (U7830306) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Why are you having a go at Laura before she's even said anything, VF? Is this really helpful or constructive? I still want to know the answer to my question. The Owl seems to be needling people.
-
Message 29
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
"You said you thought your mother was an alcoholic - was she really shouting at herself, do you think, rather than you?"
Astute, Fee, and absolutely right, I think.
Interesting about colleagues closing ranks around the perpetrators of domestic violence, C-B. There is a parallel with alcoholism; certainly in my family. -
Message 30
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:02 GMT, in reply to Judith Hearne in message 29
There are many parallels, Judith, like the way that the other people involved often feel so guilty, as if they should have done something/been something else. -
Message 31
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Irish Rose,
I replied on the other thread:
Best Wishes,
F(A)B -
Message 32
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
And I assume that alcohol, if not alcoholism, is often in the mix when there is domestic violence? Certainly domestic violence often seems to be in the mix when there is alcoholism - luckily not in the case of my husband - his abuse was all verbal and pretty passive aggressive at that - in fact, I probably came nearer to hitting him than he came to hitting anyone.
Fee -
Message 33
Posted by carrick-bend (U2288869) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:03 GMT, in reply to Fee in message 32
And I assume that alcohol, if not alcoholism, is often in the mix when there is domestic violence?Â
"In the mix" is the right way to look at it - often, but not inevitably.
Another parallel is just - Throw out your stereotypes - it's people who are...like us. -
Message 34
Posted by Kate McLaren etc (U2202067) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:50 GMT, in reply to carrick-bend in message 33
I have heard so often from people in al-anon that their father was an alcoholic and then they married an alcoholic and now their son....
an extreme but maybe odd example is X who says that every single person in her family that she can think of is an alcoholic - except herself. i do not think she ever drinks alcohol.
i wonder whether the "nature" is partly "nurture", as in, the alcoholic parent is unable to teach or demonstrate other coping strategies to their child - if i understood correctly, a bit like judith, who automatically sonnected alcohol with somethig you do when you need a lift (was it judith? someone anyway).
when you are a child you think that what is going on around you is normal, howver abnormal it in fact is. so daddy (or mummy) hitting the bottle and getting plastered whenever anything goes wrong is the absolute normal thing to do and it sort of infiltrates itself into your consciousness long before you become maturely aware that they are wrecking their lives.
i dunno. i had never met alcoholism until i met it in a partner, so this is guessing. -
Message 35
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Drystane
One of the most interesting things (IMO) - because so counter-intuitive - which F(A)B posted on the first debating thread yesterday was this (I'm posting it again here because I can well understand anyone not feeling like reading through all of yesterday's posts on that thread):
One of the interesting things that I turned up when googling was that children of alcoholics have virtually the same chance of becoming alcoholic if they are adopted into a 'non-alcoholic family' as if they are not adopted, and that non-alcoholic children adopted into alcoholic families are not more likely to become alcoholic. This suggests that it is not growing up with alcoholics around you (or the familial environment that this creates) that increases the risk for the children of alcoholics. I find it surprising that there is so little effect. As always, I would like to add the caveat that this doesn't mean that there is nothing that can be done about altering the risk of becoming alcoholic.Â
As I said, I find it a bit depressing as to the weighting between nature and nurture.
Fee -
Message 36
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
Wow Judith, that's powerful, and I can see how easy, for want of a better word, it would have been to do that.
Yes, this is fascinating and sadly (for curiousity's sake) something you will prob never know. Ditto your point below.
It never ceases to amaze me the different paths we took to reach our alcoholism. In contrast to you alcohol was there in my very social family but I was the first to become an alchy, as far as I know. I'm possibly lacking some family history.
I've come to no conclusions about my own alcoholism but read new findings with fascination. -
Message 37
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
I remember reading somewhere that one of the difficulties in researching in this area is that many people who would now be recognised as alcoholics (for want of a better word) would not have been a couple of generations ago. I've heard several people say in recent months that knowing what they now know about it, they recognise that members of an earlier generation in their family probably were alcoholics. And even where it is recognised that there was a problem it's often been suppressed - I get the impression that my husband's uncle's alcoholism (which killed him in his early fifties) has never been much talked about in or by the family.
Fee -
Message 38
Posted by BasiainBrooklyn (U505001) on Saturday, 29th March 2008
I agree Fee. There was alchy behaviour in my family which I've now come to recognise, even when the person in question was not actually drinking. Have not really spent too much time thinking about it but it's something I'm sure my mother will happily discuss with me about grandparents etc.
Bx -
Message 39
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
I wanted to come back with some comments about the adoption studies that I mentioned on the other thread, and which Fee copy-and-pasted over here. Fee mentioned that the results (suggesting that it is genes, rather than a shared family 'environment', that are responsible for the resemblance between relatives in alcoholic behaviour) were a bit depressing. Actually, they are not as depressing as they first appear, and I wanted to explain some of the reasons why.
I guess the main point that I want to make is that 'heritability' is quite a tricky concept to get your head around. It all sound so straightforward: if something is 'genetic' surely we can't change it by changing the 'environment' in some way? Actually, this just isn't so. The textbook example for biology students is a genetic disease called phenylketonuria (PKU), which is determined by a single gene. The 'heritability' for this disease, calculated in the normal way, would be very high. However, the disease (which leads to irreversible mental retardation if not treated) is completely treatable by dietary means.
Putting this in a more general way, the 'heritability' of a trait (height, PKU, propensity to alcoholism, whatever ...) depends on whether individuals differ genetically and the range of environments they experience: in the 'natural' situation (some individuals have the PKU gene, other don't; no special diets), PKU is highly heritable. In an imaginary situation, in which everybody has the PKU gene, and some get the special diet, the differences between individuals would be entirely due to environment, and PKU would have zero heritability! This is what is so slippery about 'heritability': a measured value is specific to the genetic composition and environments in which it was measured.
This slipperiness caused a lot of confusion in the debates about the inheritance of IQ. Within the white population, IQ has a fairly high heritability. People mistakenly thought that that meant that the big difference in avergae IQ between the white and black population must therefore be due to genes (because the differences between the white individuals was largely due to genes). In fact, the truth is (at least much closer to - I'm not sure anybody really knows) that white and black people have genes for about the same average IQ, but that there was a huge average difference in environment (schooling etc).
Where does this get us in relation to alcoholism? The studies that I mentioned in the quote that Fee has copied and pasted seem to suggest that the propensity to develop alcoholism does not depend at all on environment. Actually, they suggest something really rather specific: that there is no difference on average between the effects of an alcoholic familial environment and a non-alcoholic familial environment on the probability of becoming an alcoholic. This leaves two possible environmental routes to influencing the probability of becoming alcoholic: (1) Maybe there are 'helpful' and 'unhelpful' environments within the current range of familial environments, but these are equally represented in alcoholic and non-alcoholic families. (2) Maybe there are potential 'helpful' environments that do not currently exist, but could be developed (just like the special diet for those with PKU genes). ('Environment' can be anything that isn't genetic: medication, diet, education, psychological treatment, etc.) To me, this leaves a lot of scope for helping children at risk of becoming alcoholic to avoid doing so, and the way forward is to try and identify what would be useful. The one thing the adoption results do tell us is that, if there are differences in the avergae environment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic families, those factors that do differ are unlikely to have a big effect on the propensity of becoming alcoholic.
I'm not sure how successful I've been in explaining this. I'll try and clarify if anybody would like me to. (I'ver tried to avoid technical language, but just spotted - and edited - one unnecessary use of a technical term.)
F(A)B
PS The other think that is worth noting is that adoption studies are not always what they appear. When heritability is calculated from resemblance among relatives, the assumption is that all the resemblance is down to genes. This is something that's reasonable if you're working on eg milk yield of dairy cows, because you can control who mates with who, and make sure that all individuals get the same diet etc etc. (Quite rightly!) we don't have that kind of control over humans, but the idea is that when we look at adopted children, their environments will be different from that of their birth family, and so any remaining resemblance with their birth parents is down to genes. In fact, as part of the inheritance of IQ debate, some researchers looked at whether this was true, and it turns out that the environments of adopted children *do* resemble that of their birth family to some extent! This is partly because of the policy of adoption agencies, but also because of cases where eg the mother had twins and couldn't cope with them both, so one was adopted by relatives or friends living in the next street. However, this of course doesn't occur in every case: my judgement is that relatively high heritabilities (like 50-60% for alcholism) cannot be entirely explained in this way: the true heritability is likely to be a bit lower (say 10% or so at a wild guess) but not disappear if the 'biased' adoptions were taken out of the calculations. -
Message 40
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
F(A)B - yes, I think I've got my head round that - and I know that averaged out results tell you nothing about what is going to happen in any particular individual case.
In an imaginary situation, in which everybody has the PKU gene, and some get the special diet, the differences between individuals would be entirely due to environment, and PKU would have zero heritability!Â
What would be good would be to bring all children up in a way which counter-balanced the likelihood of alcoholism even for those at greater genetic risk of it - in which case I assume that alcoholism would also have zero heritability.
I suppose, thinking about it further, what I find a bit depressing is not so much the innate nature/nurture balance - but the fact that the findings would suggest that on average we do not bring our children up in a way that alerts them sufficiently to the dangers of alcohol and/or provides them with adequate emotional tools to avoid the risks of substance abuse.
As you say, it's a shame we've lost Mr Theodore and Borsetshire Blue from these discussions - it would be interesting to know what current professional thinking is on this.
Fee -
Message 41
Posted by Miftrefs Laura in Lothian bufily ftitching (U2587870) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:38 GMT, in reply to Fee
I suppose, thinking about it further, what I find a bit depressing is not so much the innate nature/nurture balance - but the fact that the findings would suggest that on average we do not bring our children up in a way that alerts them sufficiently to the dangers of alcohol and/or provides them with adequate emotional tools to avoid the risks of substance abuse.Â
It is depressing, isn't it?
I think that, as a society, we don't seem to equip our children with 'adequate emotional tools' for all kinds of things - suicide used to be extremely rare in under-18s but now it's only very rare, if you see what I mean.
The vast majority of children grow up in all kinds of family and school settings (two parents, one parent, gay parents, brought up by grandparents, whatever) and turn out absolutely fine and go on to live good happy healthy lives and live and be loved and love and laugh and cry and so on.
But somehow there are a certain number who grow up stifled in some ways; maybe they are aware of that, maybe they bury it under a disguising factor - maybe they become 'heavy drinkers' in an accepted social way like a club rugby player, maybe they become workaholics and found vast business empires, maybe they throw themselves into their children's development... and then when their disguise vanishes (an injury stops them playing sport, the business collapses due to recession, the children leave home), the ability to cope just isn't there.
Those are scenarios that have nothing to do with money or education or background or anything except personality, but they are scenarios later in life - but the same thing happens in younger years, I believe. A child feels a subconscious lack of something in its life, and throws itself into sports, its Best Friend, its music, its First Love, and when that goes wrong there is just nothing there.
What I've read indicates that young males die from suicide more often than young females - now, that might be because of choice of method, or it might be because girls tend to talk about their feelings more, or it may be something else or many somethings else.
But I do think that if everyone reading this goes out of their way to show the young people in their lives a way to celebrate, to commiserate and to de-stress that doesn't include alcohol, then it won't do any harm and may just end up doing some good, even if that's in 20 years' time...
That's my tuppence-worth. It's probably biased by my own experience, which was that I couldn't cope with life and found very early on that alcohol helped blunt those feelings - and stopped looking for any other method. Now I no longer lean on/ rely on/ depend on/ am addicted to [del as applic] alcohol, and I believe that's mainly because I use so many other coping methods to keep the "requirement to drink" at bay.
laura -
Message 42
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
Hi Laura,
Glad to see you in here and thanks for another thoughtful post. I take your point entirely that education for people (of any age) on other ways of coping than consuming alcohol is desperately needed. I'm also struck by the sheer prevalence of alcohol (especially in UK), and the general acceptance as normal of high levels of alcohol consumption. I'm also worried by what I see as peer pressure among young people to consume quite large quantities of alcohol to 'fit in', and the steady erosion of other ways of spending an evening out because most forms of 'entertainment' have become linked with heavy drinking. What's your views on these? Do you think that we need to tackle these things first, or your suggestion, or both at the same time? (I guess I should point out that my views are influenced by the fact that I've always been almost tee-total.)
F(A)B -
Message 43
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
This article in today's Observer is somewhat relevant:
- extraordinary that the pubcrawl organising company thinks it can justify itself by pointing to others doing similar things.
Fee -
Message 44
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
Hi Fee,
I have quite a lot of colleagues who work in UK universities (I used to work in a UK university, and moved to NL over 10 years ago). One of them pointed out to me recently that, whereas pubs that serve local communities (eg village pubs) are doing very badly in the UK, there is a huge growth in 'student' pubs around campuses - both by 'locals' turning into student pubs, and new pubs aimed at students opening. It's very easy to see the commercial imperative: people 'entertaining' themselves by consuming large quantities of alcohol must be a very profitable use of space. Pubs don't want people who come in, chat, play a game of dominoes and nurse the same half all night. Don't have a solution and am seriously in danger of sounding like a grumpy old woman. (OK, I admit it, I *am* a grumpy old woman!)
F(A)B -
Message 45
Posted by Flightless Anachronistic Bird (U6437464) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
OK, back to something that isn't just a moan!
Fee: I know that averaged out results tell you nothing about what is going to happen in any particular individual case.Â
Actually, I was trying to say something that's more positive than that. Your statement is a bit like saying 'well, you might get lucky'. One of the things I was trying to say is that - despite what the data from adopted children of alcoholics *appear* to suggest - there is scope for *making* your luck. Even though, on average, the families of non-alcoholics are not a 'better' environment than those of alcoholics in terms of preventing children from themselves becoming alcoholics, there is almost certainly variation within both of those groups in how good they are: in other words scope, for choosing to provide an environemnt that is helpful.
What would be good would be to bring all children up in a way which counter-balanced the likelihood of alcoholism even for those at greater genetic risk of it - in which case I assume that alcoholism would also have zero heritability.Â
My imaginary PKU example (everybody has the gene) was very extreme to make a point (and PKU is extreme because the special diet, as far as I know, completely solves the problem). I think with alcoholism the problem is never going to go away entirely, but the point that I was emphasizing is that in no way does high heritability mean that we cannot change things by 'environmental' means. I agree we should be looking to educate all children, but I guess, if there are limited resources, that these should be targeted where the risk is greatest (eg children of alcoholics: also presumably treatment of parent(s) gives an opportunity to offer help to children at the same time, as you mentioned for your family).
One of the things that I was struck by was the diversity of experience of the posts by children of alcoholics: that some were put off alcohol, while others were almost 'encouraged' by the behaviour of their parents (I'm thinking about what Judith said). One of the things I said on the previous thread was:
there seem to be several kinds of factor that are genetically influenced and have an effect on the probability of becoming alcoholic:
Alcohol metabolism
Disinhibition/impulsivity
Level of response to alcohol
Independent psychiatric disorders
I imagine that these could vary independently, so one person might be at risk through one genetic factor, and another through another genetic factor.Â
This is entirely speculative, but I could imagine that some of the variation in whether people 'follow' their parents into alcholism might depend on which of these factors were more important. Thus someone whose main genetic risk is to do with the way that they metabolize alcohol might well find it relatively easy to stay away from alcohol in the first place, whereas those who have genetically infuenced personality traits (impulsiveness etc) are going to find it harder to do that. I was interested in Loosewheel's comment that her(?) father was a very charismatic person. I wouldn't be at all suprised if an increased vulnerability to alcoholism was a downside of personalities that were also socially attractive (and that both were therefore influenced by the same genes).
Anyway, enough rambling!
F(A)B -
Message 46
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
Fascinating stuff, F(A)B! And all.
I have always thought of heredity as a sort of catapult. It fires you off in one direction with some force, certainly. But you can change speed and direction.
Do you think there are possibly different TYPES* of alcoholism? Some months back, someone (Fee? Ellie May?) commented that while all alcoholics have a problem with the substance, they don't all have the *same* problem. That struck me as a central issue and I found it surfacing in my mind again reading recent posts in here.
Certainly, I started drinking alcoholically for different reasons from Laura, for example. (I've tried to ask in related threads WHY* other alcoholics started to drink that way, and have been flamed for raising a "futile debate"... Which to me seems central to understanding the condition) Are both Laura and I the same as the person who starts heavy social drinking at 15 and just goes on increasing the "dose"... or not? To mention but one other route.
I would be interested to know the biologist's view. Or indeed, any view.
* Apologies for the capitals. The ex-broadcast journalist's Search for Italics can produce nothing better. -
Message 47
Posted by Judith Hearne (U7775397) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
"Thus someone whose main genetic risk is to do with the way that they metabolize alcohol might well find it relatively easy to stay away from alcohol in the first place, whereas those who have genetically infuenced personality traits (impulsiveness etc) are going to find it harder to do that. "
(pah! would that I had the know-how to do the red quotes boxes..!)
I've just re-read this paragraph F(A)B, and it triggered all kinds of responses. Do you think possibly that some of us maybe inherit COLLECTIONS (again, sorry.. But no italics have been harmed in the production of the last word) of genes, which can lead to addictive behaviour? Rather, that is, than just one, stamped Alcoholic? Sorry if the answer has been implicit throughout, but I'm not a biologist and have been so excited by some elements of your posts that I may well have overlooked others..
To tie up both my posts, my father was always delightful, thoughtful and stimulating company, drunk or sober. My mother was an aggressive, or even violent, drunk. And then there was me, told I would be an alcoholic from a very young age, though totally uninterested in alcohol until my early 30s. And not an alcoholic until nearly a decade later. I have two brothers, both of whom have a "normal" attitude to alcohol; but then, they were not told that they would inevitably become alkies.
I know this has been considered in re adopted children. But what about he more obvious case of siblings who have grown up together? For example, are the members of my family just different manifestations of the same alcoholic genetic influence, depending on temperament? Or did we all have different stamps on our brains before we even started? -
Message 48
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
<QUOTE>(pah! would that I had the know-how to do the red quotes boxes..!)</QUOTE><BR /><BR />Well, that one, at least, is easy - type <QUOTE> then the text you want to box then </Quote> - but use a lower case Q each time.<BR /><BR />Will think some more about the rest of it.<BR /><BR />Fee<BR /><BR />
-
Message 49
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
I may not have been paying sufficient attention, Judith, but I'm not sure whether you have ever said exactly why you started drinking in the way you describe as alcoholic (and since it's such a contested term it might be helpful to know what you mean exactly when you describe your drinking as being alcoholic).
One of the problems is identifying the level of generality at which one should deal with the concept of a reason (something which I'm familiar with from legal reasoning) - someone might say, for example, that they drink to deal with an unhappy marriage - someone else might say that they drink to deal with the consequences of trauma in childhoold - but you could say that actually those are both the same reason: using drink to escape from problems which cannot be dealt with in another way. There may be other people who cannot even identify the precise issue or issues causing them trouble but who think they drink just to relax - whereas in fact they too are drinking to deal with life. So some things that look like different reasons might not really be -but then there are probably also other completely separate categories.
Fee -
Message 50
Posted by Fee (U3534148) on Sunday, 30th March 2008
Further thought - I was in an Al Anon meeting recently in which about 10 people shared experiences and I think all but one of them had second (or third) generation alcoholics in their families - several examples of people who had been married to alcoholics one but not all of whose children had become addicted - several examples of people who are children of alcoholics with sibling alcoholics but not themselves alcoholic.
I remember coming across one model of alcoholism as a family disease which suggested that there is a likelihood of the eldest child becoming the "carer" and developing controlling tendencies and of a younger child becoming a rebel and an addict - can't remember what the explanation was - I expect there's someone else around who knows. Be interesting to hear from Tiny Clanger - I suspect she knows the model I'm trying to remember.
Fee
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